


Cold Outside (but keep me safe)

by FantasySwap



Series: Cold Outside [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Child Neglect, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 10:56:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16157606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasySwap/pseuds/FantasySwap
Summary: Bucky isn’t sure exactly when his life became so perfect; a couple of months ago he was living in a dilapidated flat, sharing a tiny bedroom with four other people and skipping his breakfast of plain toast every morning to avoid being beaten up. Now he has an iPhone. He’s living in the height of luxury, it feels like.Sequel toCold Outside (but here you are)





	Cold Outside (but keep me safe)

**Author's Note:**

> I know this format is WILDLY overused but I love it 
> 
> Italics is the past (the first story from Bucky’s POV)  
> Normal is the present
> 
> Hope you enjoy! <3

Bucky wakes to the smell of pancakes and an empty bed. Steve knows pancakes are Bucky’s favourite breakfast, especially since he admitted he hadn’t had proper pancakes since he was a kid, so Steve has taken it upon himself to make a different kind of pancake every morning to surprise Bucky. Yesterday was blueberry, the day before was chocolate chip.

 

The mattress beneath him is soft and without holes, the duvet warm without being scratchy. He has a lockable door between him and the rest of the world and there are pancakes waiting for him in the other room, along with his extremely loveable boyfriend. Bucky isn’t sure exactly when his life became so perfect; a couple of months ago he was living in a dilapidated flat, sharing a tiny bedroom with four other people and skipping his breakfast of plain toast every morning to avoid being beaten up. Now he has an _iPhone_. He’s living in the height of luxury, it feels like.

 

He pushes the covers back sleepily and swings his legs over the side of the bed, brushing a hand through his scraggly hair. It’s grown longer in the past few months— it’s almost at his shoulders now and Steve has taken an unexpectedly strong liking to it. He says he enjoys tugging on it whilst Bucky is sucking him off but Bucky knows for a fact that the real reason his boyfriend is so passionate about it is because he can run his fingers through Bucky’s hair when he puts his head in Steve’s lap to watch television. Steve is a softy through and through.

 

Which is not to say he can’t be rough. Bucky has seen him at his toughest: kicking out a middle aged woman when he caught her trying to steal Wanda’s bag, arguing on the phone about funding for the shelter, fucking Bucky up against the shower wall after Bucky has been particularly bratty. Steve has a beautiful soul but he isn’t a pushover: Bucky admires that about him.

 

Bucky is up surprisingly early today— there are only a few kids hanging around the common room when he stumbles his way to the kitchen. Although if he’s honest, those kids probably never went to sleep in the first place. Steve is humming ABBA tunes when Bucky sneaks in behind him, wrapping his arms around the man’s waist and placing a kiss between his shoulder blades.

 

“Hey boyfriend,” he mumbles into the fabric of Steve’s sleep shirt. “Whatcha makin’?”

 

“Lemon pancakes. Acquired taste but I think you’ll like them.” Steve replies, a smile in his voice. “You gotta let me go or I’ll burn them, Buck.”

 

Bucky burrows his head further into Steve’s back and let’s his fingers trail up and down Steve’s stomach, tracing the outline of his muscles through the shirt. He kind of just wants to drag Steve back to bed for the next few hours and forget about the pancakes, but Steve has responsibilities here that he can’t just walk out on.

 

“Don’t wanna.” Bucky whines, relenting and letting Steve go all the same.

 

“I know, Bucky, I know.” Steve chuckles, turning round to look Bucky up and down. He wonders how he looks: he’s dressed in a pair of boxers and one of Steve’s t-shirts that absolutely swamps him, falling loosely off one shoulder to reveal his collar bone and trailing all the way down to his thighs. His hair is soft and wavy, brushing against his neck and falling over his face. He’s become more confident lately, allowing Steve to see more of his body without there needing to be sex involved, but he still can’t see why he’s desirable in Steve’s eyes. He’s not sure he ever will.

 

***

 

_The shelter is a last ditch resort. Bucky has looked all over the city for places that claim to do what this shelter claims to do, and he hasn’t found anywhere even remotely legit. If the owners aren’t asking for money then it’s a rat infested, two bedroom bungalow that someone has converted into a home. Bucky knows beggars can’t be choosers but in this scenario he’d rather stay at the house and risk being beaten up._

_He stumbles across the shelter completely by accident one day. He’s been trailing around the city again, looking for freelance work that he can take on, when he looks up and suddenly there’s an honest to God homeless shelter all laid out in front of him on a goddamn platter. There are all manner of posters stuck in the window advertising babysitting services and lost dogs, but the most prominent sign is the one hanging over the door, that Bucky is drawn to like a moth to a flame._

_‘No fees, no questions, everybody welcome.’ The people who run this place are obviously saints, to be putting themselves and their business - if it could even be called that - at risk like that. Who knows who they could be letting in?_

_Still, Bucky is tempted. He could just stay one night, one night without fear or anxiety about whether or not someone will try to take his stuff or attack him while he’s vulnerable. He could even stay for breakfast, get a warm meal before heading back to Pierce. He could do it… no one would have to know…_

_Bucky walks past the door hurriedly, keeping his eyes to the floor. He doesn’t need charity and he most certainly doesn’t need to stay in a homeless shelter. Bucky hopes he never sees that place again._

________

_Of course when he actually does go in, it’s completely against his will. A bunch of Rumlow’s friends had followed Bucky and jumped him a few blocks away from Pierce’s place, and in his panic Bucky had started running and not looked back. Typically he slows down outside the shelter, the stitch in his side becoming too much to bear. He’s limping a little and his face feels pretty numb; he only knows he’s bleeding because he can taste the blood rolling down his face and against his lips._

_When he hears a voice behind him he gasps, fully prepared to start running, but instead of Rumlow’s friends he sees a woman and a man standing a few feet away from him, observing him. The woman is tall, her feet set apart imposingly and she has long auburn hair tumbling past her shoulders. The man looking younger but more approachable, tawny brown hair in spikes all over his head. They take one look at him and the woman shakes her head._

_“You wanna come with us, kid?” The man says, holding his hands in front of him as though surrendering. “We can get you sorted out.”_

_“No thanks.” Bucky replies breezily, deliberately not making eye contact with either of them._

_“You sure about that? That bruise looks pretty nasty.” The man tries again, his tone hopeful. Bucky shakes his head and tries desperately to think of something to say to reassure them that he’s fine when the woman rolls her eyes and opens her mouth._

_“Oh please.” She scoffs. “You’re coming with us and we’re gonna fix you up whether you like it or not, even if that means we have to drag you.”_

_“You know that could count as kidnapping, right? I could probably sue.”_

_“You could probably try.” The woman arches an eyebrow at him challengingly and Bucky knows there’s no way he’s getting out of this. He doesn’t think he really wants to._

***

 

The lemon pancakes, despite sounding gross, turn out to be a huge success with everybody except Quill who eats Clint’s yoghurt instead. Bucky ends up eating two, both drenched in maple syrup of course, before waiting with Steve for everybody to disperse. They wash up in companionable silence, flicking each other with soap suds every now and then.

 

When they’re finished they only have about half an hour before Bucky has to go out. A few weeks after returning to live at the shelter, Steve encouraged Bucky to start taking classes at the nearest high school they could find that would accept him, and after a gruelling entrance test Bucky finally got a place. He’s missed so much school over the years that they had to put him in mostly freshman classes, and at just a week shy of eighteen he’s the oldest freshman there, but that’s okay. He isn’t there to make friends really: he’s there to graduate so that he can maybe get his own job someday. He’d like to help people, he thinks, people who are going through similar things to what he went through.

 

“I’m gonna go shower.” Bucky tells Steve once they’re back in their bedroom, hidden from view. “Wanna join me?”

 

“We have to be out the door in thirty minutes, you know.” Steve smirks back at him. It’s crazy how much Bucky has changed in just a few short months. Back when he first met Steve he would never have been confident enough to blatantly offer to share a shower with someone— not even his boyfriend.

 

“Is that a no?” Bucky teases.

 

Steve follows him into the shower.

 

***

 

_After that first time, Bucky can’t stop thinking about the shelter. He snuck out in the morning after panicking and thinking that maybe this is all a trick, maybe the rug is about to be pulled out from under him, maybe—_

_He regrets it immediately. Steve is so clearly a good person with a big heart and a beautiful soul, not to mention he’s drop dead gorgeous. With his bright blue eyes and blonde tousled hair and boyish smile directed at Bucky, it’s difficult to believe that he would have tried to hurt anyone. The man set up a homeless shelter for street kids, for fuck’s sake. But the way he blushes when he looked at Bucky…_

_Bucky is no stranger to people wanting him. Sure, the people who want him don’t so much want him as they want a body to fuck, and Bucky’s just happens to fit the bill. But he knows desire when he sees it, and Steve is like an open book. The memory of it makes Bucky’s heart pound, deliriously excited, before he remembers that Steve is an amazing person and he deserves better than some street kid with a dumb nickname._

_Still, he can’t quite help himself when he goes back a second time. Pierce has been pissing him off all week and he has to get out of that house or he’s going to go insane, so he heads for the shelter without consciously knowing it. When he arrives, he figures, it would be pointless not to go inside._

_Only, when he does it’s difficult to leave. The atmosphere inside is just so warm and friendly and open. There are kids around Bucky’s age lounging on chairs that don’t look like they’d break if you sat on them, people snacking on thing that don’t have mound growing on them. People look happy here, at peace, and fuck it if that isn’t something Bucky wants to be a part of._

_He isn’t sure how long he’s been hiding up against the wall for before Steve must clock him and sidles up next to him, eyes ahead like he isn’t about to talk Bucky into staying. (Bucky knows before Steve even opens his mouth that that’s what he’s about to do. He also knows that he’s going to say yes.)_

_Bucky takes the brief opportunity to observe Steve from the side when the man thinks he isn’t looking: Steve has a really wonderful profile. A sharp jawline, clean shaven and smooth looking. A slightly crooked nose with the tip turned upwards, giving him a sort of boyish charm that compliments his features. His eyelashes are long, curving over his cheek delicately. His lips—_

_“Do you need anything?” Steve asks, and Bucky jerks his head back to face the front lest he be caught staring dopily at Steve like a creep. Of course Steve’s first instinct would be to make sure Bucky is okay rather than to yell at him for ditching, because Steve is a Good Person and Bucky is not, and the world so, so doesn’t deserve this man._

_“Could do with some water.” Bucky replies testily, fully expecting Steve to laugh in his face. He doesn’t, of course, and Bucky soon finds himself following the man into the staff kitchen. He almost asks what separates him from the others, why Steve deems he’s fit to invade Steve, Natasha and Clint’s space, but he isn’t sure he could bear the answer._

_Steve is a gentleman through and through, and Bucky looks like even more of a naïve kid next to him. Bucky stutters his way through a conversation, maintaining one facial expression throughout in order to fight off a blush. Then, of course, Steve has to mention his face and Bucky thoroughly embarrasses himself again. If their hands hadn’t been touching, if Steve hadn’t looked like he wanted to rub the pad of this thumb over Bucky’s lower lip, then Bucky would have been eternally grateful for Clint’s sudden interruption._

_Steve leads Bucky to a room. Bucky stays the night._

 

***

 

“I haven’t lived with my parents for four years.” Bucky tells Steve, sitting cross legged on the floor with his back pressed up against the wall. They’re in Steve’s wardrobe; it’s barely big enough to fit Bucky alone and Steve is a broad shouldered, heavily muscled guy, but somehow they both manage to squeeze in. Bucky feels safe in here - nobody can sneak up on him, it’s warm and safe and he can hear Steve breathing steadily in the dark.

 

Bucky isn’t sure when or why he decided to tell Steve his life story. Maybe it’s because Steve never pushed - at least, not after their big argument - and he always makes Bucky feel safe and cared for. Maybe it’s because he gave Bucky a home, that Bucky feels like he owed him something. Maybe it’s all of the above. All he knows is that he’s sick of carrying around the weight of his own sob story on his back, and he knows Steve wants to know.

 

“I never knew my father. I lived with my mother. We didn’t have much money and she had… a string of different boyfriends. When I was younger it was okay because I didn’t really understand what was happening. As I got older it got… less okay.”

 

It starts off like this: easy. It starts off no pressure, no shame, I get it Bucky, I understand. Then it gets harder. They stop understanding. You could have done this. You should have done this. Why didn’t you do this? They start blaming him.

 

“When I was older, twelve, thirteen, whatever, my mother got this really bad one. He was such an asshole. He wasn’t abusive or anything, wasn’t an alcoholic, he just hated me. I think he hated all kids really. He’d stay at home all day and watch cable TV and when I got home from school he’d give me shit about not washing the dishes or something. I think his name was Jack. I can’t remember.”

 

Steve inches closer, hand fiddling with Bucky’s fingers. It’s not Bucky that needs the support and they both know it. Bucky has repeated this story inside his own head so many times that he could recount it off by heart now. Steve is the one in the difficult position.

 

“One day I got home and Jack was in my room. He’d trashed the place. He said he was looking for money but I think he just wanted to screw with me. I was just so sick of everything— I just wanted to be like other kids, y’know? I wanted a regular mom who’d give me a packed lunch and worry about me if I was late home. I got so mad, I started yelling stuff about her being a terrible mom and not caring about me. She started crying and Jack said that I had to go.”

 

Steve’s fingers flex, barely noticeable, against Bucky’s hand. He’s back to stroking Bucky’s wrist instantly but the tell was there and he can’t take it back. Bucky wouldn’t want him to: it shows he cares.

 

“My mom… she was real needy. She needed a guy with her at all times or she felt unloved. Probably some feel psychological shit she should see a therapist for, whatever. She made arrangements for me to live with a friend of hers. They lived in a different neighbourhood so it meant a different school, but it was only about twenty minutes away. I was so mad at my mom that I refused to see her for so long after I moved that eventually she stopped coming.”

 

Steve’s hand moves to the nape of Bucky’s neck, playing with the baby hair there. It feels so good, so relaxing, that Bucky could just fall asleep here, in this dark, warm space with Steve right here next to him.

 

“A couple years later the people I was staying with got busted for dealing. A few of them left before the cops arrived; I think they were planning to go to Canada? I never found out what happened to them. I was fourteen or fifteen and I had grown up resenting my mother, so when my mom’s friend asked if I wanted to go home or go live with some of their friends, I chose the last option. I dropped out of school and moved in with Pierce. He didn’t have as many guests then as he does now.”

 

Bucky lets out a sigh. That’s the hard part done, Steve knows most of the rest. He doesn’t have a horrible backstory - there was no alcoholic parents or paedophilic guardians - but he’s been tossed around from place to place and he’s had to grow up far too soon.

 

“My mom reported me missing pretty soon after I started living with Pierce. I don’t know why I never went back, but the longer I waited the harder it became and then I just… couldn’t. All I could think about was that she gave me up for some asshole she probably only dated for the next month.”

 

Steve squeezes Bucky’s hand and brings it up to his lips, placing a delicate kiss to each knuckle.

 

“So you haven’t seen her since you were twelve?” Steve asks, voice calm. It’s an inquiry rather than a judgement and it makes Bucky’s heart swell with affection. He shakes his head, knows Steve will hear it through the darkness.

 

“You want to?”

 

Bucky hesitates before answering. “I don’t know.”

 

***

 

_Their first kiss is nothing like Bucky imagined it, and Bucky has imagined it a lot of times in a lot of different ways._

 

_For a start, he’s dressed completely in Steve’s clothes and he’s a puffy-eyed, snot nosed mess. His hair is messy, he’s trembling cold and he’s sitting in Steve’s lap like a child looking for an adult’s attention, pulling at their trousers when they don’t get it. It can’t be attractive at all, yet Steve still wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, still slips his tongue inside Bucky’s mouth, still calls him sweetheart._

_  
_

_The thing is, Bucky knows their relationship would be frowned upon. Steve is only eight years older than him but when you’re seventeen, that’s seen as a much bigger deal. Maybe it should be, Bucky doesn’t know; all he does know is that he’s seventeen, he’s never had someone love him more than anything and Steve is here calling him sweetheart and offering to take care of him. Bucky jumps at the chance of a lifetime._

 

 

  _He’ll never deserve Steve. He knows that, he knows he should let Steve go so the man has a chance of finding someone worth his time and affection, but he can’t. Steve is such a beautiful person, inside and out, and whenever he devotes all his attention to Bucky, Bucky feels like he’s looking directly into the sun, feels like the most important person in the world. It’s dangerous, he thinks, when somebody can make you feel like that with just a single look. What will it be like when Steve finally gets bored of him and ditches him? Because that will happen, Bucky doesn’t doubt it. It’s happened before with everybody. Why should Steve be any different?_

 

***

 

“Does Natasha like me?” Bucky asks Steve. They’re on the bed now, kiss drunk and sleepy. Their conversation is light and half hearted, neither of them having the strength to hold anything back but neither of them having the strength to pay close attention to what’s being said.

 

“Of course she does,” Steve says in the same voice that someone might say ‘ _duh_ ’ with.“Why wouldn’t she?”

 

“I don’t know.” Bucky lies, shrugging lazily. Truthfully Natasha makes him nervous: she’s impossible to read compared to Clint. With Clint, Bucky knows exactly where he stands. With Natasha, he couldn’t have less of a clue.

 

“Did she say something to you?” Steve asks, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at Bucky. There’s a tiny furrow between his eyebrows that Bucky wants to smooth away with his thumb, and he sounds more alert now, like he’s looking out for any threats to Bucky’s well-being. It warms Bucky’s heart.

 

“No, course not.” Bucky brushes off Steve’s concern, pawing at the man’s shoulders until he settles back into bed with him. “It’s just me being stupid. Forget it.”

 

Steve hums thoughtfully. They lie in silence for a few minutes, Bucky’s head rising and falling with each breath Steve takes. Then, after a while, Steve speaks up.

 

“You know,” Steve starts, stroking Bucky’s hair absentmindedly. “When we first started dating, Nat was really worried. Clint was happy for me, and of course so was Natasha, but Clint didn’t really understand all the problems with it. Natasha… she sees everything. Way more than she wants to, most often. She can’t help it. She saw instantly all the trouble we might have. Not saying we will have, just the possibilities. She likes you, she knows you make me happy, but she worries. She can’t help it: she knows too much not to.”

 

Bucky inhales through his nose, breathing in Steve’s familiar, comforting scent and keeping his eyes closed. He doesn’t know how to feel at the thought of Natasha knowing more about him than he realises. He’s never been good at opening up, never had anybody to open up to.

 

Now he does, and it’s going to take a while to get used to.

 

“Steve?” Bucky asks in a small voice. He feels very vulnerable all of a sudden, like one wrong word from Steve would crush him.

 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Steve hums, instantly settling his nerves. “You okay?”

 

Bucky nudges his nose against Steve’s neck, wrapping an arm around his waist and snuggling in closer. He’s so okay right now, so totally fine. Happy, even. He has a home, he has friends, he has an almost family.

 

He has Steve, and that’s more than he could ever deserve.

 

“I’m just… really glad I found you.” Bucky whispers.

 

“Yeah.” Steve replies. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! :)


End file.
